Bulawayo -- Arrival and first concert

Our flight to Bulawayo was uneventful and we came through customs without any hitches (partly because my suitcase, which was full of CDs, was not with us!)  Lynn and Helen were right there to pick us up and we went straight from the airport to the hall where the concert would be that night.  We ran a couple of things and then went on to Helen's place for an amazing meal she had prepared.  A large number of her family were in town because of the special meetings we were going to be a part of, and so we had a big and wonderful houseful of people.

Since we got through customs at about 1pm and the concert was at 6 that night, we didn't have a lot of time to spare.  In 10 minutes' time Helen had whipped up a beautiful gown and shoes for me that miraculously fit me perfectly, Gail and I rigged up our electrical converter box so that we could use the flat iron and fix our hair, and we were off and running.

When we got to the hall a few hours before the concert I got to meet Erwin--the other pianist who I was going to be collaborating with.  We ditched one of the pieces that we had planned to play and decided instead to play three Brahms Hungarian Dances, which we sight-read exactly once together.  The other thing that we were going to play on two pianos we never got to rehearse, so we ended up sightreading that one for the first time in the actual performance.  That was a first for me--yikes!  It went fine, though...

There were no printed programs and so we were announcing our pieces as we went along.  Musicians backstage should probably not be given that kind of liberty because we kept shifting around the order of the program as it went along--it was somewhat hysterical.  You'd walk onto the stage and by the time you came off, the others in the green room had made a different decision about what was coming next!  We really did have a total ball, and somehow the whole thing came off without any train wrecks, despite our lack of rehearsal.